During the Earthquake
by aedy
Summary: A companion oneshot to my "Lover Dearest" fan fic. It deals with Ianto seeing the Doctor and Jack during "Boom Town".


**Title**: During the Earthquake  
**Characters**: Ianto Jones  
**Warnings**: Standalone, references to the Doctor Who's episode "_Boom Town_", pre-series (Torchwood)  
**Summary**: A companion oneshot to my "Lover Dearest" fan fic. It deals with Ianto seeing the Doctor and Jack during "Boom Town".  
**A/N**: At the end of Season 2 of Torchwood, Ianto had been working for Jack for almost two years and the Season 1 of Torchwood happens almost at the same time of the Season 3 of Doctor Who but there Ianto was at Canary Wharf (Doctor Who Season 2) so I guess it's quiet believable that when in Boom Town Jack, Rose, Mickey and the Doctor land in Cardiff, Ianto has just started working for Torchwood. Anyway, in this story he has just started his new job! Also, I'm afraid that this is ub-betaed.  
I had forget all about this story and then today, while I was finishing the next chapter to "Lover Dearest", I found it again! I hope you'll enjoy it!

* * *

Ianto looked down at the list in his hand one last time before sighing contently when he noticed that he had finally got everything he'd need to start his second day of work.

The day before he had put back on one of the suits from Torchwood London and went to work ready to do anything the Captain would have asked him to do. After all, he did say that he was ready to be his butler.

Ianto thought of Lisa hidden, waiting for him to finally find a way to bring her into the Hub and save her, and felt his heart constrict. There were times when she wasn't even a ghost of the girl he had fallen in love with, times when he wanted nothing more than to finally put her out of her misery and just start to live again.

Suddenly, while he was starting to cross the Plass, a sound that he thought he'd never hear again caught his attention. He looked around himself and before his eyes, not far away, an old police phone box started to appear.

Ianto stood there frozen, the people passing by him probably thinking he was mad but he didn't care. He couldn't look away from the phone box and hated himself when he felt the anticipation to see who'd step out of it.

He felt his heart starting to beat faster and faster and took a couple of steps as if ready to run towards the box and bang on the door until his Doctor came out of it. But in stead, he just stood there and waited. Because the Time Lord had left him and this could be a Doctor that yet had to meet him or one that had long since forgotten all about him.

When someone bumped into him pulling him out of his daze, he realized that he couldn't just stand there in the middle of the Plass with the Torchwood's cameras pointed on and so he looked around himself trying to spot a place to hide.

Finally, he hid behind one of the columns of the Plass and waited for the door of the blue box to open.

When it finally happened, a black man, a blond woman and... Ianto tried to push down the lump in his throat when his eyes landed on a much younger version of Jack (of the man he was using) stepped out of what had once been his home.

When he finally saw the Doctor, he had to resist the urge to run towards the small group of people because that was his Doctor. Not a past version nor a future one, but simply the one he had come to love from the first moment the Doctor had regenerated into it.

Ianto closed his hands into tight fists watching them laughing and starting to walk away together. He felt that same anger from years before when he had been dumped in London, come back inside him.

He looked at them until they weren't visible anymore and then turned around and headed towards the Tourist Office, fake entrance to Torchwood.

Ianto opened the wooden door and stepped inside quickly closing the door behind him and leaning his forehead against it; the shop-bags forgotten on the counter at his back.

He took a deep breath and sighed trying to regain his composure. So the Doctor that Jack had spent years talking about, was his Doctor. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"_Ianto?_" he heard in his ear, and only in that moment realized that he still had his com on. He quickly tapped it and said, "Yes?"

"_Just checking if you were back_," Tosh's voice quietly said in his ear before chuckling softly. "_Jack is in desperate need of your coffee._"

Ianto closed his eyes tightly and calmly said, "I'll be right down," before tapping the com once again closing the line.

He wanted to open the door and run to his Doctor and tell him to take him away, ask him why he had been abandoned after all the time they had spent together. He felt the key to the TARDIS that he always had attached to his neck, throbbing against the skin of his chest.

For a moment, he closed his hand around it feeling its pulse through the layers of clothes and was glad that there were no cameras in the Tourist Office because the last thing he wanted to have to explain, was why he was crying clenching a key.

After a few moments, the young man straightened his back and turned around lifting the bags from the counter and pressing the red button that opened the hidden door in the wall.

Slowly, he made his way down into the Hub where he was greeted by a small smile from Tosh and indifference from Suzie and Owen. Ianto never cared about this because he wasn't there to socialize and he didn't need to drive attention to himself since the real reason for taking this job had been so he could hide a half-converted cyberwoman in their basement.

"Oh Ianto Jones!" Jack's voice greeted him from the door of his office.

"Sir," Ianto replied politely.

"How come you're the only one calling me that?"

"Because we aren't trying to shag you," Owen answered.

Ianto barely rolled his eyes at the doctor's comment and started to walk towards the kitchenette to prepare the coffee.

"Bring it in my office, Ianto," Jack said.

"Certainly, Sir," the young Welshman said using a blank tone.

There were times when the boy unnerved the Captain; he was too polite, too detached from the rest of the team. Sometimes Jack had a hard time trying to see the boy that had helped him catch a pterodactyl in a warehouse just two days before.

His eyes followed Ianto for a few moments before he finally shook his head and headed back into his office. His eyes were still focused on the CCTV of the Plass. He had seen Ianto act so strangely before ducking out of sight and had wondered what was up with the boy until he remembered that Ianto had been at Canary Wharf and after all worked for Torchwood, so he knew what the phone box was.

Ianto arranged four mugs on the tray and then quickly deposited one on each desk before heading towards the Captain's office.

He knocked and waited for the permission to enter and then sat the mug down on the wooden desk of his boss. "Anything else, Sir?"

"No, Ianto, thank you," the Immortal looked the boy up and down before crossing his hands on the desk. "How is it going?"

"It was a lot harder in London." He glanced at the CCTV monitor standing behind the back of the Captain. "Something interesting happening today, Sir?"

Jack grinned and shook his head. "No. Did you see anything special while you were doing your errands?"

"This is Cardiff, Sir," Ianto replied shrugging. "Nothing remarkable ever happens." Before the other had a chance to say anything else, the young man turned around and left the office.

Jack watched him go wondering why he hadn't asked about a younger version of his boss stepping out of a box with the Number One enemy of Torchwood.


End file.
